


Coin Laundry

by fascinationex



Series: naruto works by fascinationex [16]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Gen, Laundry, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: “Didanybody,” Kakuzu asks in that awful, fatally flat voice, like he’s takenone lookat the four of them and he knows already what happened, “get any laundry done?”
Relationships: Deidara & Sasori (Naruto), Deidara & Uchiha Itachi
Series: naruto works by fascinationex [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/997137
Comments: 15
Kudos: 118





	Coin Laundry

The door bangs closed behind them, and in the enclosed space, Deidara can really smell the excess smoke clinging to their clothing, stuck in their hair – probably caught in the inner workings of Hiruko's hulking puppet body, even, which is likely to come back to bite him when he least expects it, if he knows Sasori at all. 

It’s dimmer inside. Outside the sky is overcast and the rain is relentless, and inside is worse. Their headquarters is an old, dank building in the middle of Rain, where the concrete is cracked and there’s leaks in the ceiling of the top floor. The highest balcony has a good view when there’s thunderstorms, but otherwise it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s boring and it’s filled with people Deidara would rather not see. So there’s not that much to recommend it, all up.

Deidara knows it’s going to be an extra bad afternoon when he looks at Kakuzu’s face. 

Very little of it is even visible, but he can see the set of his jaw through the mask, and there’s a little vein visible at his temple, just out from his eye, that seems more pronounced than usual. 

“Did _anybody_ ,” Kakuzu asks in that awful, fatally flat voice, like he’s taken _one look_ at the four of them and he knows already what happened, “get any laundry done?”

There’s a pause. It goes on for a while.

Deidara thinks he can hear Sasori creaking next to him, cables and joints in Hiruko making the faintest of noises as they wind ever tighter. He shifts uncomfortably on his feet. 

“… I have,” Itachi says finally.

Of course he has. 

Deidara turns a seething eye toward him. He doesn't even look ruffled, despite the singed edges of the other three. His hair swings in a sleek dark tail behind him, and he is, in fact, holding a bag.

“Absolutely not,” Sasori growls, before Deidara can even open his mouth.

“Aa,” Kisame says, pleasant and bland, and with all his teeth showing, like Deidara is meant to be intimidated or something, “the first time was enough.”

Itachi hefts the bag from under his arm, bulging with cloth, holding it forth like Kakuzu might want to personally inspect it. As if anybody with two brain cells to rub together would want to invite Kakuzu any closer than he already is. Deidara grinds the teeth in his hands and clenches his jaw. 

Itachi glances back over at the three of them. 

His eyes smoulder like coals and his expression is difficult to read anything from. For a moment, his gaze rests on Deidara, and Deidara lifts his chin and bares his teeth automatically in response. 

Itachi's eyes keep going, drifting over Deidara and back to Kisame like he reads nothing into Deidara's face, either. Placidly, he says, “Excuse me,” and then leaves with his laundry. His footsteps sound quietly through the silent room.

Kakuzu lets him go because… because it’s _Itachi_ , probably. Everyone lets Itachi get away with things.

Deidara crosses his arms.

“We’re banned from the laundromat,” Sasori says, without further preamble. 

Kakuzu does not have the grace to look even slightly surprised, which is frankly _rude._

“We’re not _banned_ ,” Deidara hisses, tuning toward Sasori. “They didn’t _ban_ us. They weren’t even _there_ to ban us—”

“To be fair to Deidara-kun,” Kisame cuts him off, in a tone that Deidara _strongly suspects_ indicates that he won’t be being particularly fair, “it’s tricky to ban someone from a building that no longer exists.”

Right. Right, like that. Deidara takes a deep breath. “It’s not _my_ fault, yeah.”

Everybody – even Kakuzu, who has no way of knowing what happened – turns toward him with expressions of stunning, overwhelming doubt, like – hell, like the kind people usually reserve for Hidan. That’s how unfair this is! People are now looking at Deidara like they look at _Hidan._ How is that even possible?

Listen. 

_Listen._

* * *

The coin laundry empties out the second they arrive, which is both slightly cool and slightly offensive. It’s not like they go around murdering people in the middle of Rain – firstly, Pein and Konan would flip, which is a thing to be avoided at all costs; secondly, their entire group is head-quartered here and they _live_ in the village when they’re not out on missions. It’s a lot easier to exist in a village with the relative goodwill of the existing population. 

But the empty laundromat means that it’s just Deidara, Itachi, Kisame and Sasori, staring down the barrel of rows upon rows of washing machines, some still humming and spinning obliviously on with their absentee owners’ stuff. The room is otherwise pretty bland: the walls are tiled in ancient, cracked greenish tiles and the corners have cobwebs that look like they've been there for longer than Deidara's been alive. There are wooden benches, extremely battered, and a little cork board full of advertisements and community notices. Someone's offering babysitting services for an insultingly low cost.

Laundry is a stunningly boring chore, but ninja in particular start to _really smell bad_ if they leave it too long. Deidara is the kind of person who doesn’t much mind being a reeking goblin while he’s out on a mission, but the second he returns to civilisation he wants to clean the clay and smoke out of his hair and cook himself in boiling water for hours. 

Deidara shoves his clothes into the nearest machine and bangs the door shut. He doesn’t bother to separate out the items, since they’re pretty much all dark blue and black anyway, and it’s not like they can get any _worse_ chemical stains than they already have. Then he glances at the back of the generic-brand powder capsules, fills the recommended amount, and jabs the ‘start cycle’ button with his thumb.

The cycle does not immediately start, but he figures maybe it’ll take a few moments. Maybe even like a minute. And then the door will lock into place and the inside will start filling with water, right? 

Deidara waits. 

It does not turn on. 

He drums his fingers on the outside of the machine— “ _Stop that_ ,” Sasori says, low and threatening, and he stops instinctively before he realises he has obeyed, then scowls and does it louder out of spite—and gives it another minute. 

Nothing. 

He peers at the operating panel. The whole laundromat is full of simple, repurposed models, presumably taken from regular duty in people’s houses and sold on. This one’s no different: no fancy LED display or anything, just a few dials and switches… 

The on/off switch is resting at ON.

The dial is set to ‘DAILY CYCLE’, which he guesses is what he wants. His clothes aren’t wool. He doesn’t know what ‘delicate’ means on a washing machine. Hypo-allergenic? That’s… a wash cycle? 

His eyebrows knit together. Maybe he didn’t press the start button and he just... thought he did…? Or… something. 

He pushes it again, harder. 

Nothing. 

He scowls. 

Did he get a broken one? Does he just… pull everything out and switch machines? Although, he’s already dispensed his powder into this one, and he’ll have to explain it to Kakuzu if he needs to get another capsule…

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t bother him. But Kakuzu is… Deidara is pretty sure he fantasises about murdering all of them just to help him calm down at night, yeah.

And Kakuzu is completely capable of making a village-wide damn issue of a whole two ryo.

He leans over the machine, peering at the wall. There’s a long row of grey plugs in the outlet, emerging from a tangled and dusty bundle. It’s hard to see which is which, but the outlet is turned on.

Frustrated, he pushes the button a third time, even though, obviously, it’s not going to do anything. He knows it’s not going to do anything. He’s just, you know, irritated. Why can’t stupid things happen to Sasori? Or, so much better, Itachi?

“Do you… need help,” Itachi begins, in that stupid voice he uses when he’s definitely talking shit but he wants to seem all stoic and distant and like he doesn’t _mean_ to be talking shit, just stating facts, “with turning that washing machine on?”

Deidara’s eye twitches. He exhales, long and slow.

From someone else, maybe he would accept – Well. Uhhh. No. Probably not. 

But he _definitely_ won’t accept help from Uchiha Itachi. 

Saying ‘yes’ might actually, physically kill him, yeah. Just – stop his heart, right in his chest, while it shrivels into a little bit of humiliated nothing at all.

“No,” he growls fiercely. He goes through the process of checking all the bits again. 

He can _feel_ Itachi’s stupid eyes, burning red like an apocalyptic sky, boring into his back. The skin prickles sharply across the nape of his neck. He’s starting to sweat, which is _ridiculous_. It’s a _washing machine!_

“ _Stop staring at me_ ,” he snarls over his shoulder.

Kisame makes a noise that might be a huff of laughter, poorly suppressed, and Deidara’s shoulders hunch up around his ears.

_I am going to blow every last one of you up_ , he thinks. It’s a soothing thought in the moment. He knows it’s too hard to actually accomplish with all of them always in one another’s company. Maybe if he thought Sasori would side with him, that’d be one thing, since both Itachi and Kisame aren’t half as good as they think they are, long-range, but— 

“Stop whining and put your washing on,” Sasori interjects, already sounding impatient to be done. 

Deidara twitches. 

He gives the washing machine an expression of death. The dial is set correctly. The on-off switch is on. The door of the machine is securely shut. There’s washing powder inside the – 

Itachi steps past him, around the back of the machine, and casually leans down to pick up a slim grey plug, which he equally casually inserts into its place in the row of power outlets on the multi-plug adaptor.

He looks straight at Deidara as he slides it home.

The door of Deidara’s machine clicks on and it begins with a whirr. 

“ _I had it, yeah_ ,” Deidara says, in what might not be, like, entirely classified as an indoor voice.

Itachi’s mouth does something complicated, briefly, and then his expression smooths away again.

“Apparently not,” he says in a perfectly even, neutral tone, that nevertheless communicates, somehow, how very superior he thinks he is.

Deidara is going to light him up like a bonfire. One day. He’s going to take his limbs off, cut him open, pack him with high explosives, and then sew him back shut again, then leave him in the middle of nowhere somewhere and just _leave him waiting for it_ – but not too long. Not long enough for the shock to finish with him. He wants him to really _feel it_ when the chakra ignites in his ruined innards— 

He realises, from the minute, tense shift Kisame makes behind him, that there might be a little bit of killing intent leaking into his chakra signature. It’s not all that peaceful a signature to begin with, because, well, his bloodline limit is the _explosion release_. Killing intent is very obvious when Deidara leaks it.

He unclenches his hands, feeling the little dents of teeth marks in his fingertips. He licks his lips with all four tongues. It’s fine. 

In furious silence, he turns away. 

Itachi says nothing, and returns to standing next to Kisame in silence. 

Deidara paces out his seething energy until Sasori tells him that he has to stop immediately or risk acid in his shampoo.

He’s probably the least irritating person in this group that Deidara—under protest, obviously, since it’s not like he wanted to join this merry band of psychopaths to begin with—works with, but Danna is… like this, sometimes. Often. Deidara shoots him a dirty look and hoists himself to sit on top of one of the machines. It’s running a spin cycle, whining high and spinning fast, and the person whose clothes are going around and around inside is nowhere to be seen.

The relentless vibration of the machine isn't exactly soothing but he gets the feeling that if he moves to cross the room again Sasori might really poison him this time.

He has enough opportunity that Deidara's pretty sure he could do it, no matter how vigilant Deidara tries to be. They all live together, and he only has to succeed once, after all...

"...Deidara," says Itachi, in a voice that sounds like he would give anything not to be talking to Deidara right now, which is rich coming from him, "you are changing the weight distribution of that machine."

What does Deidara care if someone has to redo their load of laundry? Is Deidara meant to respect the sanctity of the laundry of random strangers who run away from his presence now? Itachi is just making shit up to annoy him on purpose now.

He turns a speaking glower on Itachi, who appears as usual less impressed with everyone around him than he is with himself.

"So what?"

"Itachi-san," Kisame starts cautiously from where he's leaning his massive overmuscled bulk against the far wall. Deidara doesn't even like Kisame but he still wonders how anyone can stand being Itachi's partner day in and day out.

"The machine is in excess of twenty years old," Itachi begins.

Deidara makes a _fierce_ effort to tune him the hell out even as he vows to stay seated on the stupid machine until they're done. Who cares if he's transgressing against one of Itachi's unspoken, personal rules of laundering? 

He doesn't pay any attention when the machine starts thumping under him, either, because, well—it's a washing machine. Deidara isn't sure what kind of fancy washing machines they use in Fire country but where he's from, washing machines thump and vibrate and sometimes spin so hard the weight of the clothes in them skids them against the floor. They're not quiet, polite machines, okay? 

It's thumping pretty loudly though, deep heavy sounds that Deidara can feel under his thighs, a heavy and struggling counterpoint to the vibration of the spin cycle.

At least Itachi has shut up. Even if they have to sit here in stormy, tense silence, waiting for their stupid clothes to be done, at least they'll get out alive and with more or less clean clothes.

Even if it's boring. And long.

...Sasori isn't really the kind of guy you leave waiting in silence at a laundromat either, Deidara reflects, tuning out the struggling growls of the machine beneath him for the more serious threat of Hiruko's twitching tail-piece.

There's nothing anyone can really do to fix that—anyone who tries talking to to Sasori now, under circumstances when he must wait for a set amount of time with nothing to occupy him, is taking a foolish personal risk. He's not very good at waiting out queues or radio advertisements, either...

The machine beneath Deidara gives an almighty groan. Then the middle of it sags, metal bending dramatically under his weight.

_What the hell_? He grabs the next machine over for balance.

“What the—” Something inside the machine goes _crack_. The door comes off its newly-misshapen fixture and hits the ground with a loud, echoing clang that drowns out Deidara’s swearing. 

Suddenly there is sudsy water spewing across the floor. Whatever part of the machine is spinning the clothes around—a steel barrel, seems like—is much closer to Deidara’s butt, and its rapid rotations make him stumble forward off his perch just to save his balance. 

His feet and ankles immediately get soaked.

Deidara swears loudly. With the flood of soapy water has come someone’s washing, so he finds himself kicking aside someone’s ruffled underthings as he wades away from the rush of washing water.

“Idiot,” growls Sasori, which is, like, fine; Sasori calls Deidara an idiot practically every day.

From across the other side of the room, just audible over the hum of the machines (and the agonised mechanical thumping of the one Deidara just broke), he hears Itachi make a soft sighing noise—which is _not fine_ at all.

Deidara feels his face go hot, and he’s not sure if it’s embarrassment or rage.

“Don’t even start," he snarls.

“I didn’t say anything,” says Itachi placidly, _plainly looking to start some shit_. “But perhaps if you had paid attention—” 

He pauses to sidestep the wet tunic Deidara hurls at his head. In that moment, his machine—the first one on, and a newer machine running on a faster cycle, apparently—beeps and clicks, and he begins to pull out his clothing.

“—you would not now be wet.”

Is it possible that there’s any single person more smug and condescending in the world than Uchiha Itachi? Deidara does not think so.

He takes a deep breath to respond, then pauses.

It smells… familiar.

“Aa…” says Kisame slowly. “Deidara-kun, are you aware that the machine you just broke runs on electricity?”

Sasori makes a singularly frustrated noise. Deidara twitches. Sounds like this usually immediately precede violence.

That’s the smell—it’s smoke. Something in the washing machine has gotten wet where it should not, probably due to the collapse of parts of the old metal. The moisture having rapidly increased the current in its circuitry, and the washing machine being _ancient_ — 

“Electrical fire!” says Deidara, _not_ in alarm, just as a spark flies up into the air from the back of the busted machine.

It captures his attention immediately, as sparks tend to do. His own eyes widen as the bright spark glows against the wall, and then while he’s still watching that with bated breath, the smoke doubles and triples, ballooning up in a thick, dark, spreading stream. The flickering light of a fire bursts into brightness beneath it.

“Hurry up,” growls Sasori, shoving a sopping, soapy pile into Deidara’s arms, and then shoving him roughly towards the door. He looks over his shoulder at the growing fire. It crackles merrily behind them.

Not one of them is ready to try to put an electrical fire out with more water without knowing precisely what’s going on with the electrical current itself, so they all spill out of the building, clutching bags and piles of clothes in various states of dampness and soapiness.

Outside the sky is overcast and it is, of course, still raining. The whole village feels washed with a kind of grey veil: grey clouds, grey buildings, grey rain… grey smoke, seeping slowly out of the windows of the flooded coin laundry.

They all look back at the building.

It’s actually kind of cool, Deidara thinks, how you can see the flickering light of the fire from within, like a portent of things to come. The insides will be all eaten up by the fire as it grows. Shame the rain will stop it from spreading, really...

Itachi’s annoying voice intrudes on his giddy contemplation. It is grating, and superior, and he is going to lose his mind if he has to listen to him for another minute—

“Perhaps laundry is too advanced a task,” Itachi says contemplatively, “for someone who is… like Deidara.”

Deidara’s grip on the wet clothes slips when he twitches. A soaked puttee falls limply to the ground. 

“Itachi…” Deidara growls. He can _feel_ a vein in his forehead start to twitch. 

“Mm?” Itachi turns toward him. From the set of his shoulders, even if not from the expression on his face, it’s easy to tell that he’s annoyed. “Someone like you,” he says, calm and factual-sounding, “who doesn’t even have the skills to turn the washing machine on… can you really expect to complete the laundry?”

Deidara’s vision washes red in a haze of rage. “Itachi, you...” his eyes narrow.

Kisame coughs, an obvious alternative to a laugh. “Maa… Itachi-san, calm down. Most of it can be finished by hand,” he says, practically, which is an easy thing for someone with massive water-type chakra to say.

“Aa,” Itachi agrees, very neutral, and then _turns away_ , like he thinks Deidara isn’t even worth his time.

Which is when Deidara flings the whole bundle of laundry to the ground and goes for his clay, ignoring the enraged snarl this provokes from Sasori. They can wash the clothes again _later_ , just as soon as he’s reduced Uchiha Itachi to a _smear of black ash on the cement_.

Itachi leans away from the first of his projectiles, correctly anticipating that it will explode near his left—but explosions do more than just burn. They deafen, they blind, they confuse the senses and irritate the lungs and eyes. 

A clay centipede wriggles down Deidara’s leg to burrow in the ground, and he lunges.

* * *

Of course, by the time they return to base—and to Kakuzu’s judgemental stare—everybody _except_ Itachi is burned somewhere. The burns from Deidara's explosives are half heat damage and half chemical exposure, leaving large, ugly patches of skin and decimating the clothes they were charged with. The entire city block is still smoking despite the driving rain outside.

Kakuzu's hands flex: clench, relax, clench, relax. They're big, heavy with what are either tendons or his weird forbidden tentacles. Deidara can almost feel them when he watches them flex like that. The killing intent in his chakra signature is a heady, intoxicating cloud, and it makes Deidara's body light up and feel sick at the same time. He shudders and bares his teeth in a wide, wild smile.

Whatever his chakra and his body (and his face, let's not forget Kakuzu's scary-potatoes face) indicate, Kakuzu knows he isn't supposed to kill other members of the Akatsuki--and, perhaps more importantly, he must know he won't win against the three of them if he tries to murder them anyway. Almost certainly. Probably.

...Deidara thinks, anyway.

Whatever's keeping the final thread of Kakuzu's temper intact, it holds. "We're not wasting money on this ridiculous exercise again," he rumbles, instead of turning into a gross writhing mass of other people's hearts and confused monsters on the spot, which is sort of what Deidara feared. "We'll... acquire our own machine. Until then, you will all have to make do."

Deidara doesn't think the way he says 'acquire' is indicative of a desire to make a legal purchase, but then, what the hell does he care? As long as Itachi isn't going to be standing next to it, ruining everything, Deidara will be able to do his laundry just _fine_.

"Leader will be informed of your failure," Kakuzu adds flatly.

Okay, that's not... _ideal_. Deidara can admit that much. He ducks at the whistling sound of Hiruko's tail piece. It sails harmlessly through the air where his head was, trailing the acid reek of an unsubtle poison. From Sasori, that's practically a friendly, gentle shove. He isn't bothered by that.

"I suppose that's only to be expected," says Kisame, but he's also looking at Deidara now. He flashes a narrow, toothy, _extremely sharp_ smile. 

That's a little more concerning. Deidara shoots him a filthy look right back.

"Oh, like this is _my_ fault," he huffs. He gets a head start past Kisame and stalks right past Kakuzu to head deeper into the base, where the room he shares with Sasori is. There's a moment when his foot connects to the ground only a few feet away, easily within lunging distance. Kakuzu's chakra flares, killing intent filling the air like the taste of an encroaching storm. Deidara shudders and almost flinches away--but the moment passes, and then so does Deidara.

He glances warily at Kakuzu, but he looks like an angry impassive statue, standing in the entry.

Whatever. It's not like this _is_ Deidara's fault, anyway. Of course, the others are all going to pretend Uchiha-stupid-Itachi is blameless, even though he acted the whole time like some kind of god-sent laundry expert.

Despite no longer having any physical need, Sasori heaves a deep and obvious sigh, a small exercise in praying for patience. "It _is_ your fault, you temperamental brat," he snipes, following along in Deidara's wake.

Deidara ignores this, loftily, and retreats into the dank, dim insides of their headquarters to sulk and contemplate how very many items of clothing he no longer owns.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like anything about this in particular, please feel free to let me know in a comment if commenting is indeed your jam. If not, have a good night! :)
> 
> [PS: if you would like to, you may find me [on twitter](https://twitter.com/fascination_ex/status/1268799266023043072) or on tumblr at [cardio-vore](https://cardio-vore.tumblr.com) ]


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